Twitter Gives Police Info on Source of Threatening Tweet

ABC News(NEW YORK) — Twitter has now turned over information it had initially denied to the New York Police Department about the user whose account issued threats of an attack “just like in Aurora” on the Broadway theater where Mike Tyson’s one-man show is playing.

NYPD subpoenaed Twitter Tuesday for the user’s identity after the social media giant refused authorities’ emergency request for the information.

“This s**t ain’t no joke yo I’m serious people are gonna die just like in aurora,” the user tweeted Aug. 1.

Police officials won’t comment on whether they have spoken to the account’s owner or the potential for any attack. Police said they have some indication of the direction their investigation might take, based on the information Twitter provided, but would not disclose it at this time.

The Twitter user’s account seems to have been suspended because an error message now appears where the account was active as recently as Tuesday evening.

A few days before the Aug. 1 tweet, the unidentified person posted that he or she knew that the theater left its exit doors unlocked and was going to plan the shooting “step by step.”

The NYPD Intelligence Division learned of the threat late Aug. 3 and used Twitter’s system for emergencies to request the identity of the account holder, according to police officials.

“Twitter turned us down, so we dispatched police to cover the theater while we sought a subpoena to force Twitter to disclose the identity of the account holder,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said in an emailed statement Tuesday.

“We take the threat seriously, especially in light of recent attacks in Wisconsin and Colorado,” Browne said.

Alleged shooter Wade Michael Page killed six people Sunday at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis. Page, an Army veteran, was shot dead by police. Two weeks earlier, on July 20, suspected shooter James Holmes opened fire in a packed midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colo., killing 12 people and injuring 58.